Tumblr Post+ Protest

[soc_puppet]

Anyway, yeah, I'll be logging off of Tumblr in a few hours as part of Phase Two of the Post+ Protest. I'm afraid I don't actually expect Tumblr to take Post+ away; a lot of websites are married pretty hard to the Sunk Cost Fallacy, and Tumblr has sunk waaaay too much into Post+ to abandon it without at least a few years of trying to make it work. But I'm sure y'all have already gathered how big a proponent I am of Dreamwidth, and, well, any excuse to get people to check it out!

Official logoff time starts in about 3.25 hours after this post goes up, and lasts for 48 hours. We'll see what happens!

Comments

[gwydion]

What's Post+?

[capri0mni]

It's a thing Tumblr is trying out, to get people with Tumblr accounts to put a portion of their content behind a paywall... From which, Tumblr will take a cut (naturally).

The really bad thing is that, in Tumblr's first announcements of this shiny "new feature," they were encouraging account holders to get paid for their fan art and fanfic... which is illegal. And also, in the fine print about Post+, they absolved themselves of all responsibility, and won't defend any user if they get sued for their fan art or fanfic.

[capri0mni]

Oops! Didn't know there was another walkout.

I've now logged out, and moved my queue to drafts.

48 hours, you say? Maybe that's the one distraction I need removed so I can finish the story I'm working on (a retelling of "The Frog King" -- with an aro-ace princess) 😉

[soc_puppet]

Yeah, I haven't been particularly vigilant about reblogging posts about it, up until, like, yesterday 😅 I probably could've mentioned something over here, as well, but most of my social interaction these days is over there, so...

My queue is too long to move to my drafts, and apparently you can't pause it anymore, so I just slowed it to one post per day and queue'd a couple of logoff protest posts instead.

Ooo! I've been reading some of your worldbuilding posts on Tumblr, and I must say, I am very looking forward to the results!

Yeah, I was thinking last night that, without the near-constant dopamine drip distraction of Tumblr, I might be able to take a few prompts over here; but I've got work tomorrow, so I'd want to finish them all today, and I don't know if I have the spoons for that. Maybe if I ever manage to move permanently away from Tumblr, I'll end up writing more consistently again... (Or maybe that'll only happen when Dreamwidth gets busy enough that it won't make a difference 😅)

[soc_puppet]

capri0mni already explained it pretty well; there's more details, like how they didn't actually announce it themselves, but let a beta-tester announce it for them—and how she was pelted with misdirected abuse for daring to even think about trying the idea. Not Tumblr's best move, setting someone else up to take the fall.

There was a prior logoff protest a couple months ago, shortly after Post+ was announced, and a lot of people participated. After that, Tumblr staff removed the language that directly suggested that Tumblr users could and should try to make a profit off of their Destiel fanfic, but didn't add any language to say that their users shouldn't try to profit off of fanworks, and the thing where Tumblr staff won't be supporting any creators who get their butts sued is still in there.

IIRC, the goal of this longer logoff is to get Tumblr to remove Post+ entirely, but as I stated above, I don't find it very likely. In addition to the sunk cost fallacy stuff, Tumblr has got to be absolutely hemorrhaging money right now, making them still desperate to keep Post+, and with the most egregious bit of language taken care of (direct suggestion vs. indirect suggestion), I expect there will be fewer people logging off this time as well.

Some users have suggested alternatives to Post+, like buying little stickers to send to your friends, or little hats for your icon to wear, stuff like that, but again: Pretty sure sunk cost fallacy, as well as the fear that some of those same users will accuse them of stealing the idea and demand a cut of the profits, is going to keep Tumblr from going for that.

[capri0mni]

I do wish Dreamwidth's writing communities were as active as LiveJournal's were, before the buyout by Six Apart. Sometimes I need a writers' workshop setting to bounce ideas off other brains, to help me get over sticking places. When Dad was still alive, I'd call him up on the phone, and talk things through out loud, but ...

Yeah. I used to think of Grimm Brothers versions of the stories as "The authentic originals" (because that's the propaganda they themselves pushed, and even many serious scholars took them at their word, until recently). I don't think that anymore, but it's still true that their versions are the ones that modern adapters choose to remix into other media.

But when I read the Grimm Bros. 1852 version of The Frog King, my first thought was: "Well, that's a happy ending -- for the two other people whom these losers didn't marry, instead of each other.

So I've given myself the challenge of keeping all the key motif beats in the story, and reworking the context so (a moderately) happy ending makes (a bit more) sense.

[soc_puppet]

I wish Dreamwidth were more active in general. I tried the "If you build it, they will come," method a couple of times, and both times it mostly fizzled. I'm still trying to keep Queerly Beloved going out of pure stubbornness, but I'll admit it's an uphill battle, and one of the main reasons I want to be able to queue stuff on Dreamwidth.

Yeah, they had some seriously hardcore propaganda going; I was lucky enough to be exposed to some foreign versions of at least a few of the tales when growing up (Cinderella in particular), so I knew they weren't the only versions of all of the tales, but I caught enough of the "Everyone was angry about all the gory bits in the original Grimm Bros version so they cut them out" business to buy that they had a more authentic version of the European tellings, at least. I am glad to have since learned otherwise!

😂 What an excellent way to put it!

[gwydion]

Ah right. I remember the initial nightmare roll out, and then prompty forgot what it was called or that it was a thuing once the mocking ended.

[capri0mni]

Since I'm writing my princess to be aro-ace, I was thinking of posting it (in maybe 3 or 4 chapters/installments) to queerly_beloved; that okay?

Yeah, I think the "gory versions of fairy tales are more authentic" is the same argument as "Grimdark superhero movies are more realistic," but in Renfaire costume. 😜

[soc_puppet]

Yeah, they started rolling it out more thoroughly not long ago. I've got a little "Post+!!!" icon dealy in the drop-down menu for personal account related stuff (followers, drafts, settings, etc).

Honestly, I'd be satisfied (to the extent possible) if Tumblr made absolutely certain to clarify that profiting off of fandom content through Post+ was not allowed, or at least horribly fraught, but I already covered how I'm not expecting them to get rid of it entirely.

[soc_puppet]

Absolutely it would! I think it'd be really cool to have there, in fact 😃

Sounds about right, lol sob 😂

[gwydion]

I wish there was a total opt out.

[soc_puppet]

On the plus side, I'm pretty sure you have to actually sign up for Post+, if only because they need some sort of payment information. (And it looks like that information is going through Stripe, so it's not entirely the worst idea in the world, in terms of infosec.) Other than that, I'm thinking Xkit is our best bet.

[gwydion]

I live by xkit.